(James Bond) 007: NightFire
Score: 89% ESRB: Teen Publisher: EA Games Developer: Eurocom Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 - 4 (Multitap) Genre: First Person Shooter
Graphics & Sound: Duh duh, dee dah, duh dah dah. Ok, so there's no wav file, but that bad lyrical description is illustrated to say Bond is back. Now I'm not talking about 'Die Another Day', I'm referring to 007: NightFire. The latest installment of 007 takes on its own storyline, away from the new flick. Regardless, the action sequences are jam-packed with explosions and high-flying stunts, the cut scenes look as real as a movie and the Bond girls live up to EVERY expectation. The graphical style of NightFire is similar to the N64's GoldenEye, only things are even better looking this time around. Especially the Bond girls. Did I mention the Bond girls? On the other side of this category, I was more impressed with the subtlety of the music. In EA's last Bond game, you were constantly bombarded with the theme song. This time around, the theme is used in fewer spots throughout the game. Meanwhile, Pierce Brosnan is advertised as the look and feel of NightFire, although I swear it doesn't sound like him at all. However, the arsenal of weapons sounds realistic enough, which is key to any Bond game.
Gameplay: 007: NightFire is hands down the best Bond game since GoldenEye. With this year's take, you must complete twelve missions in ten different locales. During the missions, you're either playing in FPS mode or driving some type of vehicle on land or sea. No matter what level you're on, you'll pass the time using some sort of weapon or a cleverly devised Q-gadget. Much like the old games, the more Bond-like you complete a mission, the more points you will score, which leads to unlocking past characters and settings from previous Bond movies for the multiplayer modes. Speaking of multiplayer, NightFire allows for several different games, where you can either play with (or against) your friends, against the computer or both. The multiplayer scenarios reminded me of GoldenEye. We can finally say there is a multiplayer mode worth playing until five o'clock in the morning.
Difficulty: When playing the single player missions of 007: NightFire, there are three different levels of difficulty: Operative, Agent, and 00 Agent. In the easiest level (Operative), things seem to be more of a training mission on each level, as opposed to the other two difficulties. In the multiplayer games, you can choose the different AI Bots you can face. The cool thing about this is that each AI Bot has a different strategy to win the game. Some will go for the easy kill, while others tend to be more vengeful, and so on. The other details you can change are the Aggression, Accuracy, Health, Reaction Time, and Recovery Rate of the computer players.
Game Mechanics: Gamers should have no problems whatsoever in picking up the controller configuration for 007: NightFire. Another easy aspect is the game menus, which are very straight forward. Other good mentionables are the quick loading time and the minimal amount of memory used. The one nagging flaw I have is that there aren't enough places in the game to save. Some missions take more time than others, and it's at this moment where you want to save the game so you can go to class or something, rather than skip it for the third time this week. Well, you get my point. I'm just saying there need to be more areas in the game where you can save your status, rather than just after a completed level. Like I mentioned before, I think NightFire is the best Bond game to hit the stands in a long time. With entertaining missions and an addicting multiplayer mode, this game is definitely a keeper.
-Red Dawg, GameVortex Communications AKA Alex Redmann
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